


Documentation

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [37]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Farm Headcanons, Justified Paranoia, M/M, Mentions of Past Torture, Retribution Spoilers, canon typical paranoia, established relationships - Freeform, mentions of dehumanization, minor OCs - Freeform, political corruption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21793249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: It's all about what they want you to see.
Relationships: Herald/Sidestep (Fallen Hero), Ortega/Chen
Series: How Not to Fall [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327892
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Documentation

Locations.

Dates and times. 

Time tables. Or the best approximations they could make.

Weeks of data that had been compiled into best guesses. 

Richard tried not to keep to a set schedule. To keep as little of his life outside the apartment and the Mad Dog suit predictable as possible. There were still constants. Semi constants. Daily errands, groceries, the bank, walking Edith. Tried to vary them throughout the day so it wasn’t as traceable. Meetings and walks with Ricardo could be random. But Finch was once a week, rain or shine, unless she needed to cancel for whatever reason. Steel and Spoon in the park happened whenever the stars aligned and Richard’s mind needed a soft reset. Physical therapy. He and Daniel going out. Like a normal couple. Just as the mood struck and if Richard didn’t feel paranoid enough to object. 

Grainy, still-frame photographs. Black and white, mostly taken from security footage from various local businesses. The quality was poor, but even with his shoulders hunched not many people were as tall as him. Not many had that hair. And cameras didn’t care about any projected ‘fuck off’ aura. They weren’t seamless. Not every business or building bothered with security cameras and even the ones that did didn’t keep any footage that wasn’t important.

But there was still enough. Bits and pieces enough to make educated guesses about where he was and when. 

Groceries. Dog walking. They’d gotten him just by watching the sidewalks and being patient. And once they’d nailed him, they’d started focusing in on the people they saw with him. 

Ricardo and him walking from Finch’s back to Ranger’s HQ. Taking the long way. A twisting back route that jumped from street to street. And then he and Daniel out together. Frequently. Ricardo leaving work and heading home. Not heading home. Sometimes going out. Daniel heading home. 

It had been a thrill to take the risk of holding Daniel’s hand as they walked back to their apartment together. The only reprieve was how difficult it was to see on the photographs how Richard’s face had softened. How stupid he must have looked. 

Regina must have thought it was delightfully funny. If she didn’t find it revoltingly pathetic. 

“No pictures of Mad Dog?” Richard pushed, swallowing down the small screams that seemed to be coming from his joints. Had they made that connection yet? They must have. There was no way they could see and track his movements throughout the day and not see that he disappeared conveniently when Mad Dog went to work. 

None of it showed the Farm physically getting near to him. No evidence of them making contact. Neither Daniel nor Ricardo had seen anything that showed that Regina was planning on making a move. Just watching. Always fucking watching. We see you, said the leaked photos. I see you. 

And my friend? The one whose husband sells us all those fancy toys that can obliterate a human body in less than a second? She sees you too. 

Or at least, that was what they wanted him to think about it. False sense of security? Or instilling even deeper paranoia? Or. Too many plays to be made. The only thing that could be confirmed was that they knew Ricardo and Daniel were involved with him and wanted them to know that they knew. Maybe a threat? Turn yourself in and we won’t. Do the things you know we’re capable of doing. An empty threat. They’d come for them even if Richard let himself be taken.

Next to him on the couch Chen shifted his weight as Edith climbed more into his lap. 

“None that we saw,” Daniel admitted after a moment. Something rustled in the back of his mind that caught on Richard’s feelers the way a rustle in the bush could make a hunting dog freeze. Deeply uncomfortable. Shifting. Adjusting the weights and balances to stay hidden as best they could. “They had other pictures of you,” whispered and painful and flashes of. Oh. “Being tortured,” a waver in the voice. Anger bleeding through the pain.

Oh, that was. Well, Daniel hadn’t really known all the details so those pictures. Quivering in the background as Daniel tried to force those memories back and down. Tried to whip them away on particularly intense winds. They’d been brief glances but Daniel had a trained eye. The double edge sword of being so observant. Plastic tubing and wires and metal and. More organic things. Stuck into Richard while he was trapped on the gurney. 

No faces. None of the scientists or interns. Wouldn’t want to compromise them after all, if any of those images ever leaked out. 

Had there been videos? Audio recordings? Richard knew they existed but would she have brought them? Used them when baiting the two heroes? Probably not; she was showing them to the Senator after all. There was some sort of irony that warmongers like Carmichael tended to have weak stomachs when it came to looking at actual suffering. 

So what was the point of showing those images? Just in case they didn’t know he was a regene? Showing that he was a monster? Or perhaps it was to show that he was broken. Damaged goods. They must have had an idea that he and Danny were together. What better way, she might have thought, to make Daniel’s skin crawl than to show him all the things Richard’s body had been through. 

A strange. From Chen. Oh, that little spike was from Chen. Concern. Softer than he had any right to expect from the. 

Don’t think of him as the Marshal. Wouldn’t do any good to start thinking like that now. He was here and present in more ways than one and had said he wouldn’t arrest him. Not right then, at the very least. 

Still, it floated to the surface. A dead fish bobbing on the shoreline. “Torture?” quietly asked because Richard could feel himself starting to fidget more than usual. His hips and knees ached. Chest hurt. He wanted to get up, to move, to pace around. To run. And run and run and never look back because one glance over his shoulder would rip him right back to the starting line. He settled for dragging his fingernails over his jeans, scratching dully at the denim. 

Chen waited patiently. Edith was pushing her face into his now, demanding his attention. Chen didn’t give it. There was no push to his thoughts, as though even he weren’t sure that he wanted an answer. Everything was on tiptoe with him and Richard couldn’t blame him in the slightest. 

“Experiments,” Richard heard his own voice correcting. Wavering and creaky. Neural memories of when the plastic tubing had been freshly removed. How it had burned. He rubbed at his own throat and had to stop when the peal of Daniel watching him hit. Daniel wanted to. He did it, moving without any other thought to accompany it.

Daniel dipped forward suddenly, hovering over the coffee table. Reaching out to take Richard’s hands in his own and press a soft kiss to the knuckles there. Grounding. For what it was worth. 

Chen and Ricardo watched in silence. Edith’s tail began wagging and she wriggled on Chen’s lap to get into a prime position to lick at Daniel’s arm. Richard watched her for a moment before stealing one of his hands back and threading his fingers through her hair. Soft strokes. God. Would they kill her too? Richard felt his stomach roll and swallowed his dinner back down. 

“Seeing….what I could handle after heartbreak,” which was more than enough to make Chen stiffen and his frown deeper. It had been torture. Everyone involved had known it was torture. But there were a select few that also knew you couldn’t torture a machine. There was no moral complexity behind testing the limits of something that you yourself had built. Nothing evil or depraved about reinventing the wheel and then throwing it against a wall to see if it would bounce back.

Hell, what they were doing practically counted as quality control. 

Sure, it may have been difficult for lesser minds to watch the meat react. Muscles contract. Limbs twitch and tighten and fists clench into rough linen. Listen to the air passing through fleshy, corded openings in a simulacrum of screaming. But he was only a recreation of a man, not the real thing. One may as well have felt guilty about sharpening a pencil just because the wood squeaked against the metal edge. And anyone who had feelings like that didn’t last long at the Farm in any case. 

The gust of anger and disgust and hatred from Daniel stole the air from Richard’s lungs. Rare to feel and all the more shudder inducing for it. Daniel pressed his lips again to the back of his hand before letting them go. 

“If they don’t want you dead,” Ricardo’s voice felt like a punch to the stomach and Richard couldn’t stop the flinch. Ah, beans, if Daniel had seen them that meant Ricardo had seen too. And he hadn’t even gotten the choked-and-shivering version of those events that Daniel had. It took more effort than Richard was prepared to admit to look up at Ricardo’s face. But Ricardo wasn’t even looking at him, instead staring into his own coffee mug. “And they want you back, like you say they do? We still have to stop them,” firm. Resolved. Daniel’s thoughts fluttered in agreement. It settled hideously in the back of Richard’s throat. An ultimatum from two well intentioned idiots. Who knew what Chen was going to do with it. “We’re not letting you go back there,”

“It’s not a matter of letting anything happen,” Richard failed to keep the broken glass from his throat. Tearing at his words. “I didn’t let them take me back the first time. I didn’t let them do anything to me,” Not entirely true. It had gone on for years. And while it was tempting to say that he’d fought back tooth and nail every single time they’d come to wheel him away, it simply wasn’t reality. There were times when he’d tried to shut his mind off. To let whatever they were doing to him just happen. When he was too tired, too broken to muster the strength to protest. Too exhausted to give them the screams they wanted to hear. Warmth. Edith licking at his fingers again.

Trying to crawl back into his lap again. Sensing distress and wanting to comfort. Resting her head on his knee while her hind quarters stayed on Chen’s thighs. 

“You didn’t have anyone to help you back then,” not entirely phrased as a question, but the hesitation was there. Richard had caught the whisper thin thought once, a while ago, that Chen thought he was charismatic. In a way. It seemed now that he still thought there must have been someone, anyone, who had been there for Sidestep in the old days. 

“No. I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to put you on up on the--,”

“You’re not putting us anywhere Richard,” Ricardo all but slammed his coffee mug onto the table. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it to get it through your thick skull but goddamit you can’t stop us from helping you. We’re here. Get used to it,” 

Richard couldn’t stop it. Rising to his feet and accidentally brushing Edith off of him. “So what’s your big plan then?” tiny bubbles of anger welling up at the back of his throat. “Meet the enemies at the gate?” 

“I’d have an easier time making my own plans if you’d tell me yours without lying about them,” two shades off from yelling but Richard couldn’t be bothered to care and it was clear Ricardo couldn’t either. 

“You know what they are,”

“Yeah! Dying in the process is a shitty plan Richard and none of us are letting that happen either!” 

“That’s enough,” Daniel suddenly floated between them, one hand on Richard’s shoulder and the other held palm out in front of Ricardo’s face. “Both of you. Richie, sit back down,” a tone of voice that was well trained. Honed more and more. Richard felt his knees folding before his mind fully registered that he was obeying. Edith had sat up and once Richard was back on the couch practically flung herself into his lap.

Ricardo crossed his arms over his chest, not even bothering to hide the pout. Chen watched the exchange in silence, mind quick at gathering all the information being thrown at it him like debris in a hurricane. “Richard. You had plans for getting inside the Farm again.” Not a question, but a statement that had Chen’s eyes slide back to him. Taking him in. Considering. “And your plans were careful in that you only wanted to destroy their facilities, not to kill any of the people involved. Right?”

“Right.” Richard agreed after a long moment of trying to keep that tooth from being pulled. “I don’t…I don’t want anyone dead. Or badly injured…It’s careers and reputations and their facilities destroyed. I want them in prison. I want,” I want them to suffer, he didn’t say. The ugly thought had been growing steady and strong for years, waiting for the perfect conditions to bloom. He wanted them to live in fear for a while. A long while. Death would just be letting them have an easy way out. He wanted them to know there were consequences for their actions. It may have been cruel of him to want those things. It didn’t disrupt the roots of that desire at all. A half of a moment and then Ricardo spoke again.

“Daniel and I didn’t see anything to indicate that they know about those plans,” 

“That doesn’t mean they don’t know about them,” Chen’s voice was sudden. Low and thoughtful. “They could be trying to bait you into striking first,” it wasn’t an agreement to assist. Wasn’t admitting that he was on their side yet. But. Did he need to say it? 

“True,” Ricardo answered first, anger slipping out of his face and muscles. Quick change. Forced down for later. Ricardo trusted Chen. Trusted that he would be on their side; maybe he had plans to elaborate for the Marshal in private on why it was a good idea to help an escaped piece of property fight back against its manufacturers.

The thoughts that Richard could catch glimpses of coming from Chen’s head. Maybe Ricardo didn’t have to. Maybe Chen already had enough reason to agree to this on his own. Which was. Unsettling, to say the least. “I don’t know if it’s better to meet them at the gate, on our own turf, or to take the fight to them on our own terms and catch them off guard,” Chen was leaning heavily towards the former. Defensive. The Ranger’s HQ serving as a fortress to be defended. It fit for how Chen fought—reactionary. Waiting. Richard knew that Ricardo wanted the same thing he did. A quick strike. Aggressive and fast. Forcing the opponent to have to dig in and defend. Catch them off balance and press any advantage they could. And Richard had the advantage of knowing that the Farm wasn’t designed for siege warfare. The downside being none of them were really built to wage it either.

“We….we could do both?” Daniel was hesitant. 

“Too many moving parts,” Richard said after a moment of peeping in at what Daniel was going to suggest. Making a distraction at Ranger’s HQ while sending a strike team in. Very dramatic. A plan that would have worked in movies, not so much in reality. Not enough hands on deck. “Too much could go wrong…does anyone know how long the Senator is meant to be in town for?” Richard glanced over at Ricardo, hoping perhaps Miss Ochoa had given a hint.

“Three more days. She has a private flight back to the east coast,” Ricardo scooted forward in his chair. “You think that’s our window then,”

“Hard to say. Whatever arms dealing she’s doing will be settled by then. Which means Regina will probably be leaving town by that point too…and I wanted to wait before I took any further steps,” there was still so much to do. It always felt like he would have more time to do it in. Chen perked up at that. Ricardo’s eyebrows lifted as well. The at home aspect of the plans hadn’t been discussed yet; everything else had been overshadowed by the Farm and Richard’s plan to die there. 

“Wait for what?”

Richard gave them the courtesy of a wince. “Until after the election cycle. I wanted people who…have literally any form of moral compass in office. Destroying the farm and revealing what they did would only have an effect if people who think profiting off of mass death is wrong. The way it is now, anything I can do will just be brushed under the carpet. There’s too many people in the current administration with ties to the war machine. It would just be hush money and traffic accidents until it’s all back to conspiracy theorists,”

“So you’ve been gathering blackmail in between threatening all those politicians?” a dangerous thing to admit to Chen but. “And you think revealing them will be what’s enough to keep them from being re-elected?” a strong measure of doubt that suddenly changed where Chen’s direction was driving at. Not criticizing the action but the technique. 

“Yes…and no. I’ve got some good blackmail and the threats help keep certain people in line but,” an even more dangerous admission. One that wanted to stay behind the curtains, covering its shame with a bathrobe. “I’ve been working on some algorithms to…disrupt the process,”

“You were going to rig the elections?” Going to? He still was if he could get away with it. He settled for nodding which earned him a half glare from Chen and Ricardo each. Together they made for one entire disappointed brother figure. Daniel was decidedly less disturbed, which would have been surprising if Richard didn’t know more about his family. 

“They’re rigged anyway,” Danny muttered without any venom in his voice but a good deal of resignation. It was a truth that he didn’t enjoy in the slightest but one he was far too familiar with to deny. “Not by breaking machines or changing how they’re counted. Not usually at least. But they have legal ways of making sure on the ‘correct’ candidates win; even if they’re not the ones the people have voted for,” 

Another long beat of silence.

“So we’re waiting with our thumbs up our asses for them to make the first move?” Ricardo grimaced.

“I’d rather not. But if we do move and they know anything about my plans, we’ll be walking into a trap,” and there was nothing about the way that Ricardo’s face shifted that sat well with Richard. 

“You know…”

“No. I don’t know,” Richard cut him off because Ricardo was starting to grin and nothing good ever came from that sm—ah beans. 

“You don’t like having too many moving parts in any one plan but...there might be a way we can get their attention here and still make an attack on them over there. But you’re not gonna like it,” Richard felt an uptick in the tension in the room. He ran a hand through his own hair, the other still buried in Edith’s fur.

Ricardo told him.

Richard didn’t like it.


End file.
